Orgelserie: Richard Townend

Richard Townend has been the resident recitalist at St. Margaret Lothbury in the City of London for 52 years and has presented over 2,500 lunch hour programmes.  A Colles Prize winner at the Royal College of Music he also studied in Switzerland with Lionel Rogg and Guy Bovet.  He has traveled all over Europe giving recitals and has recorded historic organs for BBC radio and TV, EMI and other commercial labels both in England and the USA.  Specialist in the music of the Renaissance and Baroque in 1975 he was the first English organist to play in the International Organ Festival in Sion Switzerland on the oldest. organ in the world.  

Well known for his lecture-recital series in England he has also been a visiting lecturer at the International Organ Academies at St. Vith, Belgium, Eindhoven, Holland, Vastervik Sweden and the Fachakadamie fur Evangelkische Kirchenmusik, Bayreauth, Germany.  In 2010 he was invited to give a Gresham College lecture on the development of the organ and its music which has since had over 2,000 hits on YouTube.  In 2015 and 2017 he was  again a Gresham lecturer speaking on Bach and Buxtehude.